Mommy's Best Games, Inc. is an independent game developer founded in 2007. Our seventh game, currently in development, is Pig Eat Ball on which we started working in 2013. This is behind the scenes thoughts about game development and marketing.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

We've been working hard on the game, improving the 4-player mode, adding more levels, and the Solo mode as well. And I've constructed four new, "version 2.0" RMP SHKRs to take to the show. They now feature 5 motors in a pad, and each light up with 8 feet of LEDs!

If you're in Louisville this weekend, make sure to come to the comic book convention, then find us to play some. We've got some neat goodies to hand out, including these temporary tattoos of Princess Bow from the game!

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Pig Eat Ball won a slot to show at the Radius Festival coming up June 19th in London England!

Radius Festival is a festival of video games, including the best part--the public showcase of new games such as Pig Eat Ball!

Pig Eat Ball International

Who's demoing the game? Well, I looked and would really LOVE to go, but it costs around $1,700 just for the flight! (Indiana to London) That was a bit expensive, so I reached out to some friends and found my old buddy Moo, who lives and works in London. He'll be demoing the game for us. Cool, done!

But it's never that easy.
I wanted to show the game with our one-of-a-kind "butt rumbling" controllers. Called the RMP SHKRs, when you get attacked in the game, your butt vibrates in real life! We use these in the 4-player Party Mode, and it's a really unique experience. I made them specifically for public events like this--I really wanted to make this work!

So now I have to ship them to the UK in time by the 19th. After some crazy confusion at the Post Office sorting out post codes in the London, we got them sent. Okay, done!

Special controllers, Pig Eat Ball balls, cards, and more!

Four controllers sent by postal mail, and the game was sent digitally, everything's ready.

But wait.. what about voltage conversion? Crap!
I've only made four RMP SHKRs so far, but I've started on a new set. The new set's AC adapters actually already account for 110V and 240V. But unfortunately the current set I've built only handle 110V.
And with that, it was time to research voltage step-down converters.

The outlet plug shapes are different in the UK, and my friend Moo already has several of those simple converters, but he does not have any spare "voltage step-down converters" that actually change the voltage from the UK ~220V to the US 110V. I found this model, it seemed robust enough, and was fairly cheap, but the shipping was killer.

Approximate cost:
$91 to ship the controllers and box.
$120 for the converters and to ship them.
~$210 is costly, but I believe showing them there is worthwhile and and much cheaper than flying me out!

Special Spot

There's still some kinks to work out but at a minimum, Pig Eat Ball will be showing in some form, a week from today at the Radius Festival. And at a maximum, it will have butt-rumbling controllers with 4-player Party mode!
It's a lot of work to participate in a show like this, but knowing the organizers behind the festival selected Pig Eat Ball from hundreds of other entries feels really good.